


Burn With You

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Audio 052: Scherzo, Charley and Eight talking about things, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, PTSD, References Audio 050: Zagreus, but ya know I love them, cos ya know they never do in canon, i think, sorta - Freeform, the pair of idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25653775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: A snippet of discussion we don't hear in Scherzo.
Relationships: Eighth Doctor & Charley Pollard, Eighth Doctor/Charley Pollard
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	Burn With You

**Author's Note:**

> I killed three birds with one stone with this one. I wanted to write something else about the Sword Scene, but also wanted to write something about Scherzo, and A L S O had several dialogue drafts I hadn't used yet -- so I put all that together and ended up with this. Hope you all like it!!

"I don't care if you're having an existential crisis, we need to talk." Charley's voice broke through the ringing silence.

"I'm counting." 

"To hell with counting!" Charley snapped angrily. "We need to talk. _I_ need to talk, if nothing else." 

But both were silent for a while. Eventually, the Doctor spoke. 

"What?" He asked resignedly. 

" _What_ what?" Charley responded, sarcastic by instinct and a little vitriolic. However long it had been in this nothingness, she felt that the Doctor should have been over his sulk by now. Even if he had lost his whole world -- she had, too, and she wasn't taking it out on him, unless he sniped at her first. Once he sniped at her, she had every right to snipe right back.

"You said you wanted to talk. About 36 hours ago." The Doctor's tone was measured, but having been alone with him so long, even with as little as they'd spoken, she could detect a note of apprehension in his voice. 

Charley felt a wave of bitterness and heartbreak wash over her as she remembered what she'd wanted to address. She sucked in a breath. "It was true, you know. What I said before we came here. You're not the man I first met -- not the man I-" she broke off momentarily. "The man I fell in love with."

"Charley," the Doctor sounded as if he was going to ask her to stop, as if this didn't matter. So Charley pushed on, louder. 

"And I'm not the same girl as back then, either. The headstrong, idealistic adventuress. I grew up." _Too fast._

When the Doctor had been silent for a few moments -- Charley counted her footsteps for a while to make sure she didn't lose too long, and she couldn't help but notice how their footsteps made a near-perfect metronome. One-hundred and twenty beats per minute, if she wasn't too horribly mistaken -- she continued. 

"I was nineteen years old, Doctor." How old was she now? If she really had lost six months to the anti-time explosion, and who knew how long they'd been walking here... she could easily have passed her twentieth birthday by now. 

"Technically an adult," the Doctor mused, and even though she was aware he was trying to lighten the mood by being flippant, something snapped in her at his words and she stopped dead, forcing him to stop as well.

"I was _nineteen,"_ she hissed. "And I got handed a blade and you begged me to kill you." She both felt and heard her voice pitch an octave higher on the last few words. Gosh, sometimes she hated the way she squeaked if she was worked up. She spent so much time trying to hide her feelings and then as soon as she opened her mouth she sounded like a boiling kettle. 

"It hurt," was all the Doctor said, and he said it quietly, brokenly. He sounded small. "It hurt _so much."_

Charley couldn't immediately think of a response. She remembered how much pain he'd been in when she found him, the way his once bright blue eyes were filled with agony. "I'm sorry," she said. 

_"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" She gasped, the Doctor's last words -- her own name -- ringing in her ears as she backed away, violently trembling, both terrified and disgusted by the blood on her fingers. The Doctor's blood. He was- he was gone. Really truly gone and- it was her fault. She'd done it._

"Charley?" The Doctor's voice calling her name pulled her out of the memory. "Charley." His hand -- the one that wasn't fused with hers -- rested on her shoulder.

Charley forced her breathing steady. "Yes?" She said, realizing that she was shaking in the here and now. The Doctor could probably feel it, that was how he had realized something was wrong. 

"Are you alright?" He asked, sounding more gentle than she'd heard him since the first time they'd gotten their senses back, when she'd first collapsed in exhaustion. "You're trembling," he said, confirming her theory. 

"I'm fine," she said, knowing she was lying and knowing that it would come through in her voice. 

"I don't think you are," the Doctor said, and she felt him absently stroke his thumb up and down her arm. 

"It's just-" she couldn't find the words. There was an ache in her chest, as if the "Vorpal" blade had pierced her heart instead of his. _Snicker-snack_ \-- the sound of a heart breaking. 

"I'm sorry," the Doctor murmured. "It was... it was selfish." 

"What was?" Charley asked, bemused, but grateful that she no longer had to find words to explain how desperately, jaggedly shattered she was

"Asking you to- making you kill me," he replied. "I'm sorry." 

Something about the sorrow in his tone, and the way she could faintly feel his touch, made Charley want to cry. She wrestled with the tornado of feelings in her chest for several moments, apparently enough to make the Doctor concerned again. Her eyes flew open, although she couldn't see anything, when she felt his hand brush her cheek. 

"Are you crying?" He asked softly. 

She hadn't realized it at first, but now she felt the tears slipping slowly, silently, down her face. The Doctor made a muffled mournful noise and pulled her into a hug as best as he could, considering their fused hands. Charley sniffled, resting her head on his shoulder. She'd always felt safe in his arms, like that was where she was meant to be. Now there was a tinge of bitterness in the back of her mind toward him. But- 

"Doctor?" She said quietly, her free arm still wrapped around his back. "You- we both may be different now, but I... I do still love you, you know that, right?" 

The Doctor sighed. She felt it more than heard it. "I know." He pulled away and tugged her to start walking again. "And it's a very stupid thing to do," he muttered tersely. 

The moment -- had it been a _moment?_ \-- was over. Charley wished she hadn't said it, the thing about loving him, even though it was true. Maybe if she hadn't brought it up, he wouldn't have gone back to being angry at her. 

He had to realize by now that she wasn't here for herself? Well, partly she was. He was the only thing she had left since she couldn't return to her family. But mostly it was for him. The thought of him being alone scared her. He would die on his own, whether it was from making a stupid decision that anyone else would have advised him against, or from sheer loneliness. 

She'd started to think that Time Lords, even with as many of them there were and however closely they worked, were inherently lonely. She had seen it, once or twice, beyond Romana's iciness. And Leela, the warrior woman, wasn't a Time Lord, but she lived with them, and there was an ache in her eyes that she made no attempt to hide. 

But they didn't matter, now. Charley would never see them, or anyone else from her own universe, again. But she was here, now, with the Doctor. They were both somehow, miraculously, alive, as if God or the universe wanted them together, and she was determined not to take it for granted.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the [song](https://open.spotify.com/track/6iBq6XeCnfLQwUCWzKlsWi?si=6M_s6skcSIqIKhukbcSFBA) by Lea Michele


End file.
